Writing can be a bit of a struggle at times. You can often find you have the time, but not
the inspiration, to get anything down.
Or if you've got ideas but life keeps throwing other stuff in your way,
you can't get anything down on paper. At
least, that's what I find anyway. As I
stated last week I've been finding things very slow going creatively in recent
weeks - last week I discovered something which, to say the least, hasn't
exactly encouraged me to press on.
I'm a subscriber to Empire Magazine, and whilst flipping
through the latest issue last week I had one of those moments where you want to
exclaim, quite loudly 'Oh, for f**k's sake!!!' and put your head in your
hands. Reading through their article of
movies available to watch On Demand, I came across this description for a 2011 Swedish Horror Film entitled 'Marianne':
"In Swedish writer-director Filip Tegstedt's chilling debut, the death of a cheating husband's wife causes him to have terrifying visions of a nocturnal visitor, drawn from Swedish folklore, threatening not only his sleep, but his sanity. But is the creature, as his psychiatrist believes, an expression of his own guilt?"
My reaction is understandable, if you recall the brief outline I published for 'The Harrowed Man', the horror film I am (trying to)
write:
It is about someone who loses their wife and 4 year old child in a car crash, which he survived. Whilst struggling to carry on with his life, coping with his grief and a creeping feeling of guilt that he survived when they did not, he begins to be haunted by a terrifying figure. This figure not only feeds the man's feelings of guilt, but it also physically attacks him, each encounter more dangerous than the last.
With the support of his sister, and a grief counsellor (who believe that the man's injuries from these attacks are self afflicted), he realises he must confront this figure, in order to overcome his grief and guilt.
But this figure is not merely trying to hurt the man - it wants to make him remember things he has suppressed from his memory...
As you can appreciate, this isn't the sort of news to
inspire someone who has been in the creative doldrums of late...
However! - I decided that, before I simply throw my idea
out of the water entirely, I would investigate this seemingly identical movie
further. Thankfully, I found some key
differences:
- In 'Marianne' the main character only loses his wife but not his children. In 'The Harrowed Man' he loses his wife and only son.
- In 'Marianne' the main character is only attacked at night (the film is apparently trying to touch on 'sleep paralysis'). In 'The Harrowed Man', the main character won't really be safe at any time of day - even though some incidents will be at night and relate to dreams.
- In 'Marianne' the main character struggles to rebuild his relationship with his children following his wife's death. In 'The Harrowed Man' the main character's struggles are with himself and trying to adapt back to a 'normal' life.
Also, from watching the trailers, it appears 'Marianne' plays down horror staples such as special effects, and is shot in a low key way - 'The Harrowed Man' would definitely require some effects and more stylised filming to realise certain elements. On top of that, I don't believe the film is widely seen outside of Sweden anyway...
Besides that, I'm torn between whether to watch 'Marianne' or not: part of me wants to, to affirm that it's different to my film script; the other part doesn't, unless it unduly influences it (or proves that my idea is too similar for its own good).!
Ultimately though it hasn't deterred me from writing my
script, which is just as well.
I just need to get time and inspiration to do so....
